ep. 15 Keep Bigler Blue - The Lake Tahoe Name Controversy
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Many moons ago there was a big lake in the western territory of the United States. Native American tribes called it dá’aw which translates basically to “lake”. Some say there is a 60-foot monster like the loch ness monster that lives in the deep known today as Tahoe Tessie, some say there are hundreds of bodies at the bottom perfectly preserved from the freezing cold deep dark waters and if your fishing line is long enough you might catch an ear or piece of skin. This lake is famous today known as Lake Tahoe, bumper stickers can be found all around that say Keep Tahoe Blue. But what if I told you the name of Lake Tahoe is controversial and I would argue should be reverted to its previous name in the name of history. In this episode of Ricky's Historical Tidbits, I will share with you why we should instead see bumper stickers saying Keep Bigler Blue.
What we know now as lake Tahoe has had a few other names. Natives simply called it a lake, travelers called it Mountain Lake, General John Freemont during an expedition in the Sierra Nevada called it lake Bonpland honoring a French Botanist Jacques Alexandre Bonpland, though that name didn't stick. It went on to be Mountain lake or Maheon lake. Then in 1854, it was named Lake Bigler to honor the 3rd Governor of California, John Bigler. But then, in 1862 it was changed to Lake Tahoe, then a few years later Bigler Lake, and in 1945 Lake Tahoe.
If you don't know who John Bigler is, that's okay most haven't and those that have typically allow their political beliefs to simply label him as evil racist just like every other person in human history until they came about. History is nuanced (complicated) and people even more so are very complicated creatures. So who was John Bigler and why was Lake Tahoe previously called Lake Bigler?
John Bigler’s Road To Power
let's go over his early life real quick to give you a picture of how he came to power as the Governor of California.
John Bigler was born in Pennsylvania back in 1805, he was never traditionally educated as Government School was not in place yet and education requirements for children did not exist yet. He learned what he could from his parents and self-taught from books then taught his younger brother. By the time he was 26 years old, he and his brother bought a newspaper and he worked as the editor for a few years before he decided to go to law school.
Fast forward to age 43, James Marshall found gold at Sutter's Mill in California and news quickly traveled across the country President Polk announced the discovery that December. John and his family sought to go to rapidly growing California where he could practice law so after a few months with an ox train he arrived in Sacramento to find there was no shortage of lawyers there. With no job or home, John pitched a cheap cloth tent which his family lived in and got drenched when it rained while he worked odd jobs some of which were an auctioneer, a freight unloader at the docks by the Sacramento River, a woodchopper, and a mattress maker.
Then California had its first general election. So John jumped in quickly for a life of politics running as a Democrat representative from the city of Sacramento, He won and quickly moved up to become speaker in 1850.
Something You'll see as a trend is that Bigler was not afraid to roll up his sleeves and do some work when the time calls for it. In 1850 there was a really bad epidemic in Sacramento of a disease called Cholera.
Cholera is a bacteria infection in the intestines that comes from drinking unsafe water or food and it caused bad diarrhea which could of course cause dehydration and death. About 1,000 people died in 3 weeks. Most people fled the city but John Bigler stayed and helped the doctors and undertakers eventually getting it himself but he lived.
Governor Bigler
The next year John was nominated at the Democratic Party Convention for Governor of California whose opponent a Southern Whig, called him a gruff Yankee northerner. The race was very close but Bigler won by just over a thousand votes making him the 3rd Governor of the State of California.
He was inaugurated in 1852 and his main focus was to protect the local mining companies from outside monopolies.
One of the first things that happened as governor was emigrants were stuck in the Sierra Nevada Mountains similar to the story of the Donner party who came a few years earlier, so Bigler and a bunch of other men went to rescue the travelers. This helped boost Bigler's popularity. Though some said it was just a publicity stunt. (in fact, there was a duel over this, A newspaperman said Bigler just did that as a stunt and then a man who led the rescue challenged the newspaperman to a duel, and the newspaper guy lost, being shot in the belly and dying within 5 minutes.
One of the big negatives of Governor Bigler and his legacy was his view of the Chinese. The problem was that Mining was already a somewhat low-paying job. Tons of men came to strike it rich but found out quickly how hard it actually was to find that gold. some got lucky but most didn't and would either get regular jobs or work for a mining company for a wage. To help me illustrate this, the miners worked for minimum wage. The Chinese were coming in droves and offered to work for less than the American miners. There were other Immigrants as well, not just Americans which already is a broad term. People from all other the world worked and were paid the same, they embodied the melting pot ideal of America but the Chinese refused to assimilate and would make Chinatowns instead and took the jobs of the miners because they would work for less than the minimum wage.
So Mr. Bigler did what he thought would help the American miners and force the Chinese to up their prices by putting an extra tax on the Chinese of 3 dollars a month on top of the already 20 dollars a year that came from the foreign miner’s tax. But as with all things in government, Bigler went even further and the taxes got harsher, to the point he instituted a 50 dollars per person tax that must be paid within 3 days of arriving in California just for the Chinese. That one got scrapped by the Supreme Court though.
Back to the timeline, Bigler's 1st term was about to be over, back then a term was only 2 years. Around this time there was some grumbling in Southern California which was where the majority of pro-slavery citizens lived. They were pushing for California to be split into 2 states one free and one slave. The Democrats split themselves into 2 parties for this particular election, Proslavery Southern California Democrats called themselves The Chivalry and also went by The Lecompton Democrats. While Bigler and his group ran as The Free Soil Democratic Faction, even with the Democrats splitting the vote and running against a Whig, Bigler won re-election.
Bigler's 2nd term began in 1854, which is when his popularity peaked. Before 1854, California's State Capital's location changed, it would be here and there then back over there finally in 1854 Bigler officially designated Sacramento as the Capital. As the Capitol building was being built, The stand-in capitol was the Sacramento Courthouse. In that courthouse was a big 8-foot tall 5-foot wide painting of George Washington. The Courthouse caught fire one day and Bigler ran to the courthouse, grabbed a few men, and rushed into the burning building to retrieve that painting. Today it's hanging up in the Senate gallery at the State Capitol. The significance of that painting was that it is a copy of the one that hangs in the house chamber in D.C. and still does today. Fun fact the one in DC is also a copy.
After this, Calls for the big lake in the mountain to be named after Governor Bigler was made and then answered. Though I have to note, Lake Tahoe as we know it today was not a big travel destination, there weren't any roads to it and hardly anyone even knew it existed even though it is so big. It was in the middle of nowhere.
The name only became a problem when the lake became a destination.
Renaming Lake Bigler
After his 2nd term, Bigler ran for a 3rd but lost, from there he was appointed to be Minister to Chile which he got partially to the help of his brother who was the Governor of Pennsylvania at this time. After doing that he ran for US congress but this time he ran as a Southern Friendly Democrat in 1863 which was in the middle of the Civil War. He lost and more than that he lost the lake.
California by then was different politically, Leland Stanford a republican, was Governor, and places named after now-known confederates were being renamed, one of which happened to be Lake Bigler, it was headed by a Resort Hotel Manager by the lake Robert Dean, he asked the Tribe nearby what they called the lake and they said "tahoo" So when a mapmaker from the Department of the interior came along to make a new map he asked what the lake was called and Mr. Dean told him Tahoo.
Then, when it was announced in the newspaper they made a typo and called it Lake Tahoe. You would think that was the end of the story but not quite.
Mark Twain Hated The New Name
Most people didn't really care but some hated the name, Mark Twain despised it. Here's what he said about it.
I hope some bird will catch this Grub the next time he calls Lake Bigler by so disgustingly sick and silly a name as "Lake Tahoe." I have removed the offensive word from his letter and substituted the old one, which at least has a Christian English twang about it whether it is pretty or not. Of course Indian names are more fitting than any others for our beautiful lakes and rivers, which knew their race ages ago, perhaps, in the morning of creation, but let us have none so repulsive to the ear as "Tahoe" for the beautiful relic of fairy-land forgotten and left asleep in the snowy Sierras when the little elves fled from their ancient haunts and quitted the earth. They say it means "Fallen Leaf" - well suppose it meant fallen devil or fallen angel, would that render its hideous, discordant syllables more endurable? Not if I know myself. I yearn for the scalp of the soft-shell crab - be he injun or white man - who conceived of that spoony, slobbering, summer-complaint of a name. Why, if I had a grudge against a half-price n****r, I wouldn't be mean enough to call him by such an epithet as that; then, how am I to hear it applied to the enchanted mirror that the viewless spirits of the air make their toilets by, and hold my peace? "Tahoe" - it sounds as weak as soup for a sick infant. "Tahoe" be - forgotten! I just saved my reputation that time. In conclusion, "Grub," I mean to start to Lake Bigler myself, Monday morning, or somebody shall come to grief.
Finishing Up
Eventually Democrats got back in power and they quickly changed the name back to Bigler in 1867 but by then it didn't matter. Lake Tahoe was there to stay.
However it wasn't until 1945 that the name officially changed from Bigler to Tahoe.
Now to Finish up on Bigler's life, He was appointed by President Johnson to be the Assessor for the IRS in the Sacramento district but the senate didn't confirm him, after that he was appointed to be a railroad commissioner for the central pacific railroad and then moved on to create a newspaper called the state capitol reporter which he wan until he died in 1871 at the age of 66 years old.
Like I said in the beginning, History is nuanced and people in history even more so, renaming things for political or ideological reasons has been a part of human history forever. The important thing is this, and you can put it on a bumper sticker, Keep Lake Bigler Blue.
